Onstage, the girl dances so slowly the entire bar appears as if it is going almost into reverse to accommodate her moves, a man steps back, puts his pint down. She slides down onto the stage and grinds her hips to ‘Hurricane’ by Neil Young. The smell of alcohol, cigarettes and weed softens the dense air as she reaches one strong arm and leg up and grips onto the pole. She is upside down. Coco spins gracefully to the floor. Lays with her elbow out, head resting on her hand, and stretches one leg languorously up. Notes litter her feet like flowers. She twists around. Sits up on her knees. Hips wide, she pushes her legs as far apart as she can. Tips her head back. She is all ribcage. Pink nipples. Long blonde hair shines under the light. The Original Founders nod. Until she comes of age, nobody will touch her while they are here. The infamous Pubic Triangle is made up of three strip bars at a busy junction leading down to Lothian Road. The Red Room’s youngest star can dance and make money, but she is not to be disrespected. This only makes every man that frequents the Red Room want her more. Strippers in the Pubic Triangle’s two other bars despair at her untouched prettiness. Before long another will take her place. For now, Coco seems like the only girl in the world who can wear such tiny knickers, suspenders and stockings and somehow look wholesome. Her mother keeps one eye on her elder daughter, Ellie has come out from the private dance with a red glow in her cheeks. Coco finishes and steps offstage. She gives a quick smile to Rab, the eldest of the Original Founders.

– Don’t even fucking think it.

Bee says it without looking back at her husband.

– I never said a thing, Bee. Is it time?

– Yer fucking right it is.

Bowler hats are laid on the bar in a row.

A cellar hatch behind the bar is opened and the mother goes down a wooden ladder. The smell of damp wafts up – spilled lager and cider and the cold metal of kegs. An electric light bulb sways down in the cellar, it illuminates the upstairs bar briefly until she is back. Closes the floor hatch. Slides four boxes across the bar counter. The Original Founders each open a box and take out what is in it. They walk out leaving empty glasses behind them and the mother quickly tidies away their boxes and bowler hats, ready to be collected later.

The Original Founders push the double wooden doors open onto a street lined with snow.

Flakes cascade down through the sky.

They put on their masks one by one as they come out.

There is a ram with long curled horns.

A zebra.

A wolf.

A fox.

They walk down the middle of the road.

Canes click on the cobbles underneath the snow.